How do you use Mac Mail without using iCloud?

[WardC]

My question is:

How do you use Mac Mail with an Apple address (such as mac.com, me.com), without using the new 'iCloud' system?

My question rather is, how do you operate Mail as a standard "deliver mail message for local storage on MY computer, and delete message(s) from server simultaneously after delivering?

Much as in POP but Apple Mail services do not seem to subscribe to that standard.

It seems as if any curious eye or employee at Apple with proper permission could go delving around in various iCloud account folders on the server at any time, making none of this 'iCloud' truly a secure way of handling things. The data is stored on their computer (Massive Data Center), and any application and files on iCloud are on an Apple server which I am sure can be accessed at some level within the Apple ecosystem, thereby making it not secure and not private by any means, but rather public, invasive, and a breach of security for anybody who is concerned about who has access to your personal data, files, contacts, phone numbers, appointments, and even your photo library if you choose to use their iPhoto program.

I am therefore casting a vote of No Confidence in iCloud. Hell my modem activity light doesn't even blink anymore if I am signed out!!! So just happy for once that my iSight camera wasn't actually hacked. LOL. Anyways.

Is this taking it to the extreme?

 

[Planey28]

What are you on about...?

You can use virtually any email service you like with Mail.

I've re-read your post several times and all i can take from it is that you're very paranoid about the internet

 

[WardC]

I have had the same e-mail address since Apple started the mac.com service in January 2000. I am upset that Apple changed their standard way of handling things, in regards to privacy. It would be a massive inconvenience to shift carriers given my personal and business connections at this address, which has served me for 14 and a half years.

I am gravely concerned about the privacy of using a service which does not allow automatic deletions upon delivery, which was the way things were done up until the widespread adoption of smtp by Apple, and they thereby dropped pop and started iCloud, which is activated by default on every Mac if you do "sign-in" at startup.

Then your files are basically all stored on a remote computer, not at your own location. This is already a breach of privacy, in my opinion, and it should not be tolerated given that most people are not even aware the service is turned ON most of the time without one's ready knowledge. Your files can then be read, viewed, unloaded, shared, saved, categorized, analyzed, and scrutinized by anybody who has such access to those server drives, which is impossible to say nobody does.

That is a valid concern, and one of the wide concerns for Cloud storage, especially iCloud. If you don't knowingly "opt-out" and delete everything on the Cloud, it's all there and constantly updating. You are no longer the owner and sole operator of your personal computing environment.

I have a grave concern about these issues.

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What are you on about...?

You can use virtually any email service you like with Mail.

I've re-read your post several times and all i can take from it is that you're very paranoid about the internet

Well, it must be one of those days. I have them.

 

[kurosov]

 

[WardC]

Image

Definitely, yes...been feeling like I have been wearing one all day, as a matter of fact.

 

[scaredpoet]

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: all e-mail is insecure. ALL of it.

If you really believe that downloading your mail off the server and deleting it from "the cloud" adds any level of security or privacy to your communications, you are dangerously misinforming yourself and anyone else you've told that to.

Let's start with the obvious: "deleting" the e-mail from a server doesn't guarantee true deletion. Servers are backed up, messages are archived. The other user may opt to store their copy of the message on their provider's server (the whole point of most e-mails IS to send the message to someone else). Even ignoring this, the act of deletion does not scrub the mail server of your message. The content stays there; the storage media it sits on is simply marked as available for re- use. But the data remains until actually overwritten by new data; the duration of which is out of your control, and always has been.

Then there's the fact that e-mail is stored unencrypted by default, and every server that touches it along the way can be a point of data gathering and interception. From any stop along the way, your message, and messages sent to you, can be, as you so eloquently put it, "read, viewed, unloaded, shared, saved, categorized, analyzed, and scrutinized by anybody who has such access to those server drives, which is impossible to say nobody does."

All of this is not just an Apple problem. It's a whole internet problem. And that's been the case since long before you first got your mac.com address. Your previous method of access and storing e-mail locally has never protected you from this.

If you feel that your communications are so important that they must not ever be intercepted by unauthorized individuals, you shouldn't use e-mail, at all. And if you must use e-mail, then you will have to use encryption via GPG or something similar, and demand that everyone you exchange e-mail with use it as well (good luck with that one).